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Struggle for Monroe County 



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Howard L. Osgood. 



Read before the Koclhslcr Historical Society, Alay /j, iSgi 



By the gift of Mrs. Julia M. Griffith, the 
Historical Society has become possessed of 
two letters addressed to her father, Roswell 
Babbitt, one written from Rochester on Jan- 
uary 9, isl',), by Daniel D. Barnard, and the 
other from Albany on January 3(1, iSl'.t, by 
Dr. Matthew Brown, Jr. Mr. Babbitt, at 
the time of tlie first letter was at Albany act- 
ing as agent before the Legislature for the 
petitioners for a new county to lie formed 
out of the old counties of Ontario and Gi-ene- 
see, and composed of the towns which two 
years later were erected into the county of 
Monroe. 

Mr. Barnard states the eagerness of the 
Rochester people to hear of the labors of their 
delegation at Albany, but expresses a great 
doubt of their success. The letter from Dr. 
Brown, one of the delegates, is written to 
Mr. Babbitt after he had returned to Roches- 
ter, and discusses the political situation at 
Albany which is likely to affect the success 
of the scheme at that session. He says: "A 
[Senator is to be appointed next Tuesday or 
Wednesday. The Tammanys have nominated " 
Samuel Young ; Clintonians, J. C. Spencer ; 
Federalists, R. King. All are determined to 
support their candidates. The Republicans 
are to have a caucus next Monday evening, 
but little expectation that they will abide 
liy their promise. * * =■ Tliere is with 
some of us, a serious looking to the powers 
that may come into office. What may be 
the object will probably be disclosed if we 
•hould get a new county. * * '* I have 
some fears about dabbling in politics, but 
shall use all my influence to keep our cause 
i-lear from the effect of a connection with 
any jmrty. The House is favorably inclined 
to hear and our opponents likewise seem 
rather disheartened, but tlireatencd 
vengeance upon us in the Senate and 
\ think that is the worst place foi- us. 
* * In the present state of things it 
seevis to me utterly impossible that we can 
maite any good use of party." 



From ISKi to 1821, Ontario county includ- 
ed the eastern half of Monroe, all of Wayne, 
all of the present Ontario, the eastern part 
of Livingston and all of Yates counties. 
Genesee county included the western half of 
Monroe, the western part of Livingston, all 
of Orleans and of the present Genesee coun- 
ties. The .county seat of Genesee was at 
Batavia and that of Ontario was at Canan- 
daigua, the two being distant apart some fif- 
ty or sixty miles. The village of Rochester 
was situated between the two, partly in Gen- 
see county and partly in Ontario county, be- 
ing thus divided by the Genesee river. 

In those daj's debtors who were unabJe to 
pay judgments against them were liable to 
imprisonment for debt, but the sheriff of the 
county to whom an execution for the collec- 
tion of the debt was delivered could ar- 
rest the debtor only within the lim- 
its of his jurisdiction. Old residents of 
Rochester say that it was a common thing to 
see a luckless debtor running with all speed 
from the pursuing sheriff, to cross the middle 
of the bridge connecting the two parts of the 
village, for when he crossed that line he could 
not be arrested by the sheriff of the county 
on the other side. 

The two counties, Ontario and Genesee, in 
IslG, had a population of about SO,(IO(( and 
comprised a territory of about ;J7,0()0 square 
miles, a district considerably larger than the 
state of Rhode Island. The difficulties 
which the people of Rochester 

and the neighborhood had in do- 
ing county business wei-e enough to 
suggest the desirability of forming a new 
county with Rochester as its seat of justice. 
But little commercial business was done by 
these persons either at Canandaigua or Ba- 
tavia, except in connection witli tiie courts 
held at those places, and the county clerk's, 
sheriff's and treasurer's offices. Their ordi- 
nary business did not take them there in 
those days; the roads were bad and the 
bridges were poor, and the excursions of 



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travelers from Rochester to these county seats 
were not only arduous, but sometimes even 
dangerous. Neither Canandaigua nor Eata- 
via was a center of trade, while Rochester 
was, and the reasons of the promotors of the 
scheme were both forcible and urgent. 

As early as December, 1S16, the matter of 
the division of Ontario and Genesee counties 
was agitated in Rochester and a subscription 
list was circulated to raise funds for erecting 
the Court House and Gaol, "provided the 
Legislature at their next session shall 
* * * incorporate a new county from the 
northwest part of Ontario and the north part 
of Genesee counties and shall fix the seat of 
justice of said new county =■- * =!' near 
the bridge at the Genesee Falls.'' 

Subscriptions were obtained to the amount 
of $6,722.5I( from residents of the village of 
Rochester, of which amount $oS7.5() was to 
be paid in lumber, team work and labor. 
Charles Carroll, William Fitzhugh, Nathaniel 
Rochester and the firms of Montgomery & 
Rochester. F. Brown & Co., and Frederick, 
Abraham and Charles Hanford subscribed 
$500 each. Every prominent citizen added 
his name to the list. 

The petition circulated at that time among 
the inhabitants of the counties of Ontario 
and Genesee, praying for a new couuty, re- 
cites, among other things, that the adminis- 
tration of justice should be speedy and 
certain ; that four terms of court were held 
in each year in Ontario county, and three in 
Genesee ; that it was not unusual for a moiety 
of the issues joined in each of those counties 
to be unavoidably put over from term to 
teiin ; that in the short time of five years a 
wilderness had been made to retire befoi-e the 
hand of industry and to give place to villages, 
wealth and the arts; that while the petition- 
ers were led by multiplied concerns to the set- 
tlements on the Genesee river, it was seldom 
that they visited Canandaigua or Batavia for 
any other ol)jects than attendance upon 
courts or calls at public offices ; that those 
places possessed no local advaiitages, inde- 
pendent of being shire towns, to render 
them seats of business, and senteutiously 
states, with obvious reference to Canan- 
daigua and Batavia, "In vain does man 
design towns and villages where nature 
forbids." 

This petition asked for a county substan- 
tially of the dimensions and bounds of the 
present Monroe, and was signed by several 
thousand persons. Two plans were evolved 
about the same time, looking to the desii-ed 
result. One was ' ' to set off twelve miles on 
the west side of Ontario county and twelve 
miles on the east side of Genesee county, and 
to make two new counties about twentj^-four 
miles square each. " The other was to make 
this whole district, twenty-four miles wide 
by forty-eight miles long, into one county, 
with a county seat at Avon. 



'"1x7 

Petitions opposing the division were also 
circulated and signatures were obtained to 
the number of a little less than two thousand. 
Residents of t^anandaigua and of a few other 
parts of the two old counties actively resisted 
any division whatever, being led in their op- 
position by county and state officers. Colonel 
Nathaniel Rochester and Dr. Matthew Brown, 
Jr. , were selected as agents of the petitioners 
for the new county and went to Albany 
earlj^ in lsl7 to present the petitions and to 
advocate the plan, as well as to secure the in- 
corporation of the village of Rochester. 
At the session of the Legislature 
a favorable report was secured from the 
committee of the Assembly, but the plan 
failed in the Assembly itself. The village of 
Rochesterville was, however, incorporated on 
April 21, ISIT, aad retained that name un- 
til April 12, 1S22, when it was changed to 
Rochester. 

No active steps were taken to proceed in 
the matter of the division until the au- 
tumn of 1817, when meetings were held in 
the different towns which it was proposed to 
unite in the new county, and petitions were 
circulated similar to that presented to the 
previous Legislature; but the writer has 
found no information as to what was done 
before the Assembly in the spring of ISls. 

The desire for the division of the old coun- 
ties kept increasing and an active campaign 
was begun in October, 1818, by the appoint- 
ment of delegates from the towns, and a 
meeting at A. Ensworth's in Rochesterville. 
Pittsford, Brighton, Henrietta, and Per- 
rinton, in Ontario county, and Riga, Parma, 
Gates and Ogden in Genesee countj-, were 
repi-esented at this convention. It was de- 
cided that these towns together with Penfield, 
Murray, Sweden, and a part of Bergen, 
should be included in the proposed county. 
A committee was appointed to pre- 
pare a' petition to the Legislature 
■ and separate committees in each town were 
selected to circulate it. Finall}^ it was voted 
"that Roswell Babbitt be a committee to 
furnish money to defray the expenses of pub- 
lishing " certain notices. Mr. Babbitt must 
have been not on,ly public spirited, but self- 
sacrificing as well. A month later, at a 
meeting of the citizens of Rochesterville, 
Colonel Rochester, Dr. Matthew Brown, 
Elisha Ely, Roswell Hart, and Augustus G. 
Elliott were appointed a committee with gen- 
eral powers to promote the new county pro- 
ject, and Messrs. Ely, Babbitt, Elisha John- 
son, and Dr. Brown went to Albany in Janu- 
ary, 1819, as agents of the petitioners. The 
petition was presented to the Assembly on 
January 12th, and was immediately referred 
to a committee. 

At this time the State politics werejnuch 
confused, but ])erhaps the most importan* of 
the parties were the Clintonian and Anti- 
Clintonian. Ontario county was supjosed 



IN EXCHANGE 
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to he strongly Cliutoniau. the Senate was 
Auti-Clintonian, and the Asseniblj- was Clin- 
tonian. The committee reported favorably 
on January 2f)th, but two attempts to secure 
favoi-aLile action in the Assembly failed of 
success. This failure was due to the fear of 
C5 the rival political parties that the division of 

the old counties and the ei'ection of new ones 
would introduce elements of uncertainty into 
the campaigns of that spring, and 
of tiie succeeding spring, and while 
each party knew fairly well what its status 
was in the counties as they then stood, to 
erect new ones was deemed impolitic at that 
time. 

In the fall of isH) there were still greater 
energy and activity on the part of the di- 
visionists, who had suffered defeat in the 
elections of the previous spring. A conven- 
tion of delegates from the towns interested 
in the proposed division was held on Decem- 
ber 2, ISlO, at A. Ensworth's, in Rochester- 
ville, and committees were appointed for the 
purpose of appearing before the coming Leg- 
islature. Their pj-eparations were more 
thorough than ever before ; the petitions 
were more industriously circulated ; meetings 
were held more often, and all possible ma- 
chinery was set in motion to advance the 
success of the scheme. Among other things, 
statistics were obtained as to the amount of 
business done at Rochester, foi- comparison 
with that done at Canandaigua and 
Batavia. The warehousemen on the 

Genesee reported that between 

April 2{) and December 20. 1819, there were 
shipped from their warehouses 19,954 barrels 
of flour and s,034 barrels of potashes, be- 
sides pork, apples, whiskey and other com- 
modities produced in the i-egion. 

Levi Ward, Jr., Elisha Ely and Enos 
Pomeroy of Rochesterville wei-e the agents 
to appear before the Legislature on the sub- 
• ject of the division. Mr. Pomeroy went to 
Albany in January, ls2i), and in connection 
with Judge Charles H. Carroll, wh ■ appeared 
in behalf of the petitioners desiring the erec- 
tion of a county south of Monroe, presented 
the petitions of the towns to the Legis- 
lature. Tlie petition at this time 
stated, among other things, that the 
proposed limits of the northern county con- 
tained twentv-five to thirty, thousand people 
" and a very flourishing village of vipwards of 
fifteen hundred inhabitants doing much more 
business than any other in the state, west of 
LTtica." It was referred to the standing com- 
mittee of the Assembly on counties, which 
after hearing many parties both for and 
against the proposed division, recommended 
that the matter be postj)oned to the succeed- 
ing Legislature. In this the Assembly con- 
curred. Tile year ls'^0 was a presidential 
year. At this period the electors for presi- 
dent and vice-president were appointed by 



were appointed 
to Albany. The 
divisionists were 
although fewer in 



the Legislature, and the political com- 
plexion of the Legislature to be 
elected in the spring of 1S2() 

was of more than ordinary importance. This 
fact doubtless had muc-li to do with the re- 
port of the committee of the Assembly and 
the postponement of all proceedings by the 
Legislature of that year. 

Nevertheless, the petitioners were not dis- 
couraged by four successive failures, and 
with increased zeal and vigor took proceed- 
ings during the summer and autumn of 
1820 to make their next attempt a sure success. 
At a meeting of the citizens of Gates and 
Brighton, held in Rochesterville on August 
23, ls20, committees were again appointed 
to push the project, and on October 28, 1820, 
Nathaniel Rochester and Elisha B. Strong 
the agents to fi;o 
opponents of the 
equally in earnest, 
number. Led by such 
able generals as John C. Spencer and Myron 
Holle3% Assemblymen from Ontario county, 
and Samuel M. Hopkins, an Assembh'man 
from Genesee county, the anti-divisionists 
were able to cope with a much larger force 
on equal terms. The Legislature met on 
January 9. Is21. The petitions for tlie new 
counties were presented this time to the Sen- 
ate. Counter petitions by thirteen hundred 
remonstrants were offered by the opponents 
of division. On January 22d the bill to 
erect Monroe county passed the Senate by a 
unanimous vote. 

In the Assembly the bill met with vigor- 
ous opposition from Messrs. Spencer, Holley 
and Hopkins, who urged that no county 
should be erected of teriitory l.ying on both 
sides of the Genesee river, as it would subject 
half the inliabitants to great inconvenience 
and expense, and that the division would 
merely promote the interests of a few lawyers, 
merchants and tavern-ke' pers residing at the 
new county seats. They stated that county 
charges, before the division, fell lightly on 
individuals and that the time, w inch was a 
period of serious financial depression, wa.> un- 
propjfious for raisng the sums iiecessar\- 
to erect expensive buildings. 

Besides this, the Erie canai was expected to 
make material changes in the distribution of 
business through the coiintie- of Ontai'io and 
Genesee, and it might be found most uilwise 
to have made tln' division when the canal 
should be completed and the traffic upon it 
should be fully under way. They also uvgf' 
that there were many other places bette. 
adapted than "' Shingletown," as they calle 1 
the village of Rochester, for the seat of justioe, 
and charged that the inhabitants "f the re- 
gion about did not desire a new county, 
but were over-persuaded by a few southern 
gentlemen who had acquired landed interests 
which would be greatly increased in value b' 



the proposed change. It was also stated that 
in the near future a tier of lake counties, 
along the southern shore of Lake Ontario, 
would certainly be erected and that the 
erection of Monroe was an entering wedge 
for the purpose ; that it was better to have as 
few county clerks' offices as possible, in which 
deeds and such other instruments were to be 
recorded, as the examination of titles would 
be more easily conducted where the territory 
of the county was large. 

In the meantime their S3'nipathi^ers were 
acting vigorouslj^ in the two counties to 
create reasons for the defeat of the bill. The 
judge of Ontario county opened his court at 
sunrise and continued the sessions day after 
da\, until late at night, giving scarcely time 
for those in attendance to obtain food or 
sleep. His calendar was soon exhausted. 
The people of Canandaigua, opposing 
the division, were highly elated 

and boasted that the evils complained 
of were but imaginary and that any court 
anxious to complete what business was before 
it could easily do so. The county clerks 
kept their offices open early and late. But it 
was too late. The advocates of division 
pressed the arguments that Ontario and 
Genesee counties were too large and that 
they had exerted undue influence in the 
councils of the state in many different ways, 
and that the petitions which had been pre- 
sented to five sessions of the Legislature show 
sufficient reason for the passage of the bill. 
It passed after much filbustering by Mr. 
Spencer and his colleagues V)y a vote of 73 to 
21. The council of revision then having the 
veto power, approved the bill on February 
2ri, 1S21, and the act stands as chapter 57 of 
the laws of 1S21, and is entitled, " An act 
to erect a new county by the name of Mon- 
i-oe, from parts of the counties of Ontario, 
Genesee, aud for other purjjoses." 

The new county, flaiued after James Mon- 
roe, then the President of the United States, 
included the towns oJ/|>dtes, Pr.i'ma, Ogden, 
Clarkson, Brightpn, ''^e^jSliJ, -' Perinton, 
Pittsford. MendoiV. Heiirfetta, - a ...part of 
Sweden, a part ol Rush, au4 a/ por- 
tion of Caledonia, which was newly 
named the town of Inverness, Within 
,.t(lie boundaries of the new county were also 

.. iiuch part of the territory in the counties of 
Ontario aud Genesee "as is included between 
the southern shore of Lake Ontario on the 
south, the lioundary between the United 

\ States and Upper Canada on the north,- the 
easterly line of the town of Penfield continued 
to the said boundary line on the east, and the 
westerly line of the triangle continued to 
( he 'laid boundary line, on the west." Com- 
niist^ioners were appointed to determine the 
proper site or sites for a court house and gaol 
to be erected in the county of Monroe. A 



Court of Common Pleas and a Court of G 
eral Sessions were established and terms 
said courts were provided for. One mem 
of Assembly was apportioned to the ii 
county. Elisha Ely and Levi Ward, Jr., ' 
the town of Brighton," and James Seymo 
"of the town of Clarkson," were appoin 
commissioners to superintend the building 
the court house and gaol, and two asst 
ments of five thousand dollars each were 
thorized to be collected for the expenses 
the erection of the county buildings and 
the contingent expenses of the county. 

The council of appointment, in whom ■ 
power of naming the county officers was v( 
ed, on March 5, 1S2], appointed Elisha 
Strong as the first judge of the Court of Cc 
mon Pleas, Timothy Childs as District Att 
ney and Nathaniel Rochester as Coui 
Clerk ; on March 7tii James Seymour v 
appointed sheriff and on March lOth Elis 
Ely received his commission as surrogate, 
the election of the same year Nathaniel Ro 
ester was elected the first member of Asse 
bly from the new county and he sat in i 
Legislature of 1822; in November, ll' 
Elisha Ely was appointed County Clerk in 
place, and March 28, 1.^23, Orrin E. Gil 
was appointed surrogate in the place of J 
Ely. 

The only further question to be sett 
after the passage of the bill was that of 
site of the county buildings. It appears tl 
three lots were offered to the commissione 
One, the lot now occupied bj- the court no 
in this city, and two others on the east s 
of the river, one being a part of Enos Ston 
garden, and another a lot on North St. Pi 
street. The court house lot (which v 
finally accepted) was argued to be the b 
site for the purpose, for a number of reas( 
. which were comparisons of t 
east and west sides of the river and cannot I 
be interesting at the present time, while a 
showing that the present i-ivalry is as old 
the settlement. It was urged that the larg 
part of the new county lay west of the rn 
and that the territory on the west there 
would admit of a much larger populati 
than that on the east, " the west having mu 
more territory, and the east having mu 
more poor land ; that the soil on the w. 
side of the river is more sandy and con 
quently is dryer and less rauddj' in vi 
weather ; " that the lots offered on the east si 
were less comfortable for use because mc 
exposed to the high, cold winds in winfc 
and that the expansion of the population 
the village would certainlj^ be toward t 
west to meet the incoming trade upon t 
canal. • 

" In vain does man design towns and v 
lages where nature forbids." 



















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